Spring 2007 (Revised from May 2006). In this paper we ask, how do individual and community factors influence the average length of poverty spells? We measure local economic conditions by the county unemployment rate and neighborhood spillover effects by the racial makeup and poverty rate of the...

Our research fleshes out econometric details of examining possible social interactions in labor supply. We look for a response of a person's hours worked to hours worked in the labor market reference group, which includes those with similar age, family structure, and location. We identify...

We examine theoretically and empirically social interactions in labor markets and how policy prescriptions can change dramatically when there are social interactions present. Spillover effects increase labor supply and conformity effects make labor supply perfectly inelastic at a reference group...